Smith & Wesson

There's more than handguns at Smith & Wesson. In this gun review, the author takes a look at the Smith & Wesson Elite Gold Side-by-Side, Elite Silver Over-Under, and the since discontinued 1000 Series semi-auto.

There is little about the modern DA revolver that a firearms engineer from 1900 would find remarkable. And of all the revolvers developed during this time, none of them is more interesting than the heavy-caliber, large-frame wheelguns from the Springfield, Massachusetts, firm of Smith & Wesson.

The N-Frame Smith & Wesson revolver is available in configurations to suit just about every possible use. But at the end of the day, these big bore sixguns haven't changed that much since their introduction. That's true for one reason: They work.

The very first .357 Magnum is still first in the hearts and minds of many advocates of that caliber. This milestone revolver continues to morph into the future. In Part II of this excerpt from Massad Ayoob's Greatest Handguns of the World, the author looks at the history of the...